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Historical Events on February 2

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Events 1 - 200 of 205

  • 506 Alaric II, King of the Visigoths, promulgates the Lex Romania Visigothorum (or Breviary of Alaric), a collection of Roman law
  • 962 Pope John XII crowns German King Otto I the Great Emperor
  • 1119 Guido di Borgogna elected Pope Callistus II
  • 1141 Battle of Lincoln: King Stephen captured by forces loyal to Empress Matilda and commanded by Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester

Black Death

1349 By this date at least 200 people a day were being buried in London as a result of the Black Death

  • 1461 Battle of Mortimer's Cross: in a major battle of the War of the Roses Yorkist army of Edward, Earl of March, defeats Lancaster force led by Jasper Tudor
  • 1536 Pedro de Mendoza founds Argentine city of Buenos Aires
  • 1542 Portuguese under Christovão da Gama capture a Muslim-occupied hillfort in northern Ethiopia in the Battle of Baçente.
  • 1550 Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset and former Lord Protector, freed from the Tower of London
  • 1633 M Rossi's opera "Erminia sul Giordano" premieres in Rome
  • 1637 Zorilla's "El más Impropio Verdugo Para Las" premieres in Madrid
  • 1653 New Amsterdam becomes a city, later renamed New York City

Inspiration for Robinson Crusoe

1709 British sailor Alexander Selkirk is rescued by William Dampier after being marooned on a desert island for 5 years, his story inspires "Robinson Crusoe

  • 1714 Nicholas Rowe's play "The Tragedy of Jane Shore" premieres in London

"Poro"

1731 George Frideric Handel's opera "Poro" premieres at the King's Theatre in London, England

  • 1732 King Frederik Willem I moves Lutherans towards East-Prussia

Walpole Government Resigns

1742 British government of Robert Walpole resigns

"Artaxerxes"

1762 Thomas Arne's opera "Artaxerxes" premieres at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden in London, England

Articles of Confederation

1787 Arthur St. Clair is elected the 9th President of the Continental Congress under the Articles of Confederation

Haydn's 102nd Symphony

1795 Joseph Haydn's 102nd Symphony in B premieres at the King's Theatre in London, England

  • 1798 Federal St Theater, Boston, becomes 1st in US destroyed by fire
  • 1802 1st leopard exhibited in US, Boston (admission 25 cents)
  • 1811 Russian settlers establish Ft Ross trading post, north of San Francisco

"Semiramide"

1823 Gioachino Rossini's opera "Semiramide" first performed at La Fenice in Venice, Lombardo-Venetian Kingdom

  • 1829 Madman Jonathan Martin sets York Cathedral on fire, does £60,000 damage
  • 1843 US & British settlers in Oregon Country choose government committee
  • 1848 1st Chinese immigrants arrive by boat in San Francisco, California
  • 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ends the Mexican–American War. Mexico loses 55 percent of its territory to the US, including California, Nevada and Utah in exchange for $15 million.
  • 1852 1st British public men's toilet opens in Fleet St, London
  • 1852 Alexandre Dumas Jr's play, an adaptation of his novel "La Dame aux Camélias" premieres in Paris
  • 1854 Pope Pius IX encyclical "On persecution of Armenians"
  • 1861 The "Organized Incorporated Territory of Nevada" is created, lasting until October 31st, 1864
  • 1864 -Oct 7th) Cruise of CSS Florida
  • 1869 American industrialist James Oliver invents removable tempered steel plow blade
  • 1870 Cardiff Giant (supposed petrified human) proved to be gypsum
  • 1876 Baseball's National League forms at the Grand Central Hotel, NYC with teams in Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Hartford, Louisville, New York, Philadelphia and St Louis
  • 1878 Greece declares war on Turkey
  • 1880 SS Strathleven arrives in London with first shipment of frozen Australian mutton
  • 1887 First Groundhog Day observed at Gobbler's Knob, Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania
  • 1888 Frank Sprague opens the first successful U.S. electric street railway system, the Richmond Union Passenger Railway, in Richmond, Virginia
  • 1892 Bottle cap for beverages patented by US inventor William Painter - still used today [1]
  • 1892 Johnny Briggs takes a hat-trick, England v Australia at the SCG
  • 1892 Longest boxing match under modern rules; 77 rounds in Nameoki, Illinois between Harry Sharpe & Frank Crosby
  • 1894 US warship Kearsarge wrecked on Roncador Reef, near Solomon Island
  • 1899 The Australian Premiers' Conference held in Melbourne decides to locate Australia's capital (Canberra) between Sydney and Melbourne.
  • 1900 Gustave Charpentiers opera "Louise" premieres at the Salle Favart, in Paris France; performed by the Opéra-Comique conducted by André Messageri
  • 1901 Female Army Nurse Corps established as a permanent organization
  • 1901 Mexican government troops are ambushed by Yaqui Indians, 100 killed
  • 1901 The US Congress passes the Army Reorganization Act, placing the minimum number of men under arms at 58,000
  • 1906 Pope encyclical against separation of church & state
  • 1909 Italian writer Filippo Tommaso Marinetti publishes "Manifest o of Futurism" in Paris, France
  • 1912 Frederick R. Law, parachutes from Statue of Liberty (stunt for Pathe)

"Trees"

1913 American poet Joyce Kilmer writes his famous poem "Trees" in Mahwah, New Jersey

  • 1913 NYC's Grand Central Terminal opens
  • 1914 James Royce Shannon's musical "Shameen Dhu" premieres in NYC
  • 1919 Monarchist riot in Portugal
  • 1920 Estonia declares its Independence from Russia (Dorpat Peace)
  • 1920 France occupies (German) Memel territory
  • 1920 Tarto/Dorpat peace treaty: USSR recognizes Estonian independence

"Ulysses"

1922 James Joyce's novel "Ulysses" first published by Sylvia Beach in Paris (1,000 copies)

  • 1923 Ethyl gasoline 1st marketed, Dayton, Ohio
  • 1923 US signs friendship treaty with Central American countries
  • 1924 International Ski Federation (FIS) forms

1st Winter Olympics

1924 Norway’s Thorleif Haug takes the cross-country double at the Chamonix Winter Olympics when he wins the 18k event; Haug also 50k gold medalist

  • 1925 Belgian episcopacy rejects liberalism, communism & socialism
  • 1925 Dogsleds reach Nome with emergency diphtheria serum after 1000-km
  • 1925 NL holds Golden Jubilee Year meeting at same hotel where NL began
  • 1926 3 men dance Charleston for 22 hours
  • 1927 Harry Tierney and Joseph McCarthy's musical "Rio Rita" premieres in NYC
  • 1927 Ziegfeld Theater (Loew's Ziegfeld) opens at 6th Ave & 54th St NYC
  • 1931 1st siyyum of Talmud celebrated by Daf Yomi students
  • 1931 1st use of a rocket to deliver mail (Austria)
  • 1932 Australian spin bowler Clarrie Grimmett takes 14 wickets v South Africa (7-116 & 7-83)
  • 1932 Geneva disarmament conference begins with 60 countries
  • 1932 Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) organized in the US to provide financial support to state and local governments and to make loans to banks, railroads, mortgage associations and other businesses

Goering Bans Communist Gatherings

1933 Hermann Goering bans Communist meetings and demonstrations in Germany

  • 1933 Ucicky's "Rotten Morning" premieres in Berlin
  • 1934 Dutch Roman Catholic Bishops warn against fascism and Nazism
  • 1935 Leonarde Keeler first uses his polygraph machine on criminals later convicted of assault on its findings in Portage, Wisconsin

Sinatra in Indianapolis

1940 Frank Sinatra performs at the Lyric Theater in Indianapolis, Indiana, his first as featured singer with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra

  • 1942 LA Times urges security measures against Japanese-Americans
  • 1942 US auto factories switch from commercial to war production
  • 1943 Cubs return to original uniform after experimenting with a vest
  • 1943 German 6th Army surrenders after the Battle of Stalingrad in a major turning point in Europe during World War II
  • 1944 4th US marine division conquers Roi, Marshall Islands
  • 1944 Allied troops 1st set foot on Japanese territory
  • 1944 Baseball meets in NYC to discuss postwar action
  • 1944 Edward Chodorov's play "Decision" premieres in NYC
  • 1945 Escape attempt at Mauthausen concentration camp
  • 1946 The Proclamation of Hungarian Republic made
  • 1948 President Harry Truman urges congress to adopt a civil rights program

Hogan Injured

1949 American golfing champ Ben Hogan seriously injured in an auto accident

  • 1950 1st broadcast of "What's My Line" on CBS-TV
  • 1951 -35°F (-37°C), Greensburg, Indiana (state record until 1994)
  • 1951 US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site

"3 O’Clock Blues"

1952 B.B. King's “3 O’Clock Blues” hits #1 on the US Billboard's R&B hit parade to become his first national hit

Givenchy's First Collection

1952 Hubert de Givenchy presents his first collection in Paris with Bettina Graziani opening the show

"The Nutcracker"

1954 "The Nutcracker" ballet choreographed by George Balanchine with Maria Tallchief as the Sugar Plum Fairy opens in New York, establishes its popularity in the US

First Hydrogen Bomb

1954 President Eisenhower announces the detonation of the world's 1st hydrogen bomb (tested in 1952)

  • 1954 Rio Grande College basketball forward Bevo Francis scores NCAA record 113 points vs Hillsdale College
  • 1954 Snow falls on Gibraltar
  • 1955 1st presidential news conference on network TV-Eisenhower on ABC

Albright Olympic Champion

1956 Despite a severe ankle injury Tenley Albright leads an American 1-2 in the women's figure skating at the Cortina d'Ampezzo Winter Olympics; Carol Heiss takes the silver medal

  • 1956 The Coasters sign with Atlantic Records
  • 1957 UN adopts a resolution calling for Israeli troops to leave Egypt
  • 1958 Syria joins Egypt in United Arab Republic
  • 1958 WRIK (now WLUZ) TV channel 7 in Ponce, PR (PTC) begins broadcasting

Holly's Last Performance

1959 Buddy Holly's last performance at Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa [1]

Lombardi to the Packers

1959 Vince Lombardi signs a 5 year contract to coach NFL Green Bay Packers

  • 1960 Michale Eufemia sinks 625 balls in pool match without a miss
  • 1961 Dutch Prince Bernhard opens new RAI building in Amsterdam
  • 1962 1st pole vault over 16' (4.88m) (John Uelses-16', Melrose Games)
  • 1962 8 of 9 planets align for 1st time in 400 years
  • 1962 USSR performs nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan
  • 1963 Helen Shapiro begins tour (Beatles are part of undercard)

Baseball Hall of Fame

1964 Elected to Baseball Hall of Fame - Red Faber, Burleigh Grimes, Tim Keefe, Heinie Manush, John Montgomery Ward, & Miller Huggins

  • 1964 GI Joe, debuts as a popular American boy's toy
  • 1964 Sjoukje Dijkstra (Netherlands) wins Olympic gold for figure skating
  • 1965 Joe Orton's play "Loot" premieres in Brighton
  • 1966 Pakistan suggests six-point agenda, with Kashmir dispute as number one item, for proposed Indo-Pak ministerial talks after 1965 war
  • 1967 Bolivia adopts its constitution
  • 1967 Formation of American Basketball Association is announced
  • 1968 Springer Publishers in West Berlin, bombed
  • 1969 KMST TV channel 46 in Monterey-Salinas, CA (CBS) begins broadcasting
  • 1969 Stan Coveleski & Waite Hoyt are voted into Baseball Hall of Fame

Maravich 1st to 30,000

1970 Louisiana State University's Pete Maravich becomes 1st to score 3,000 college basketball points

Idi Amin President of Uganda

1971 General Idi Amin ousts Milton Obote and appoints himself President and Dictator of Uganda

  • 1971 US Congressional Black Caucus organizes with Charles C. Diggs Jr. its first Chair
  • 1972 Angry demonstrators burn the British Embassy in Dublin to the ground in protest at the shooting dead of 13 people on 'bloody sunday'
  • 1972 Lefty Gomez, Ross Youngs & William Harridge selected for Baseball Hall of Fame

"Jumpers"

1972 Tom Stoppard's play "Jumpers" premieres in London

"The Midnight Special"

1973 "The Midnight Special" late night rock music show debuts on NBC-TV; performers include Ike and Tina Turner, Curtis Mayfield, Don Mclean, the Byrds, and George Carlin

  • 1973 Richard Helms, ends term as 8th director of CIA; succeeded by James R Schlesinger (until July)

Hadlee's Test Debut

1973 Test debut of champion New Zealand cricket all-rounder Sir Richard Hadlee; drawn 1st Test v Pakistan, Wellington

"The Way We Were"

1974 Barbra Streisand's 1st #1 hit, "The Way We Were"

  • 1974 Playmobil toys debut at the Nuremberg Toy Fair, designed by Hans Beck and produced by the Brandstätter Group

"To Honor Mary"

1974 Pope Paul VI encyclical "To Honor Mary"

  • 1974 Smallest crowd at Cleveland Arena (Cavs vs Golden State-1,641)
  • 1974 The F-16 Fighting Falcon flies for the first time.
  • 1975 Army offensive against rebels in Eritrea
  • 1976 "Rich Little Show" debuts on NBC-TV

"The Honeymooners Second Honeymoon"

1976 "The Honeymooners Second Honeymoon" airs on TV

  • 1976 Roger Connor, Fred Lindstrom & umpire Cal Hubbard elected to Baseball Hall of Fame
  • 1977 Soviet Salyut 4 Space Station re-enters Earth's atmosphere
  • 1977 Toronto Maple Leafs Ian Turnbull scores 5 goals, NHL record for a defenseman
  • 1980 FBI releases details of Abscam, a sting operation that targeted 31 elected & public officials for bribes for political favors
  • 1980 Mexican boxer Salvador Sánchez dethrones Danny “Little Red” Lopez as WBC world featherweight champion with a 13th-round TKO in Phoenix, AZ; Lopez champion since November 1976, 8th defense
  • 1982 Government troops and Muslim fundamentalists battle in Hamah, Syria
  • 1983 CBS' premiere of fact based WW2 drama "The Scarlet and the Black", based on the life of Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty

Bernardin Made Cardinal

1983 Chicago Archbishop Joseph Bernardin is among 18 new cardinals named by Pope John Paul II

  • 1984 Lebanese army fights in Beirut
  • 1986 Dalai Lama meets Pope John Paul II in India
  • 1986 Oscar Arias Sanchez elected president of Costa Rica
  • 1987 KC Royal pitcher Dennis Leonard (3X 20 game winner), retires
  • 1987 Philippines adopts constitution

Boon's 184 Not Out

1988 David Boon's 6th Test Cricket century, 184* v England at Sydney

  • 1989 0°F (-18°C) or below in 15 US states

De Klerk Succeeds Botha

1989 F. W. de Klerk replaces P. W. Botha as South Africa's National Party leader

  • 1990 South African President F. W. de Klerk promises to free Nelson Mandela & legalizes ANC & 60 other political organisations
  • 1991 Aravinda De Silva scores 267 v NZ at Wellington
  • 1991 NH snaps its 32-game losing streak at home beating Holy Cross, 72-56

"The Soul Cages"

1991 Sting scores his second UK #1 album with 'The Soul Cages'

  • 1991 US postage is raised from 25 cents to 29 cents
  • 1992 Australian Kieren Perkins swims 1,500m freestyle short course world record, 14:32.40 at AIS, Canberra, Australia
  • 1992 Danny Everett runs world record 400m indoor (45.02 sec)
  • 1992 David Boon's 13 Test Cricket century, 107 v India at Perth

Willie Nelson's Tax Bill

1992 IRS & Willie Nelson settle on $9M tax bill (of $16.7M)

Music History

1993 Frito Lay pays court ordered $2,500,000 to singer-songwriter Tom Waits for using his distinctive voice song style in radio advertisement

  • 1993 Irina Privalova runs world record 50m indoor (6.05 sec)

Václav Havel President

1993 Václav Havel becomes the first president of an independent Czech Republic, after the split with Slovakia

  • 1995 Henry Olonga no-balled for throwing in Zimbabwe-Pakistan Test Cricket
  • 1995 US space shuttle Discovery launched
  • 1997 "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus" closes at Gershwin NYC

Bowman Makes 1,000 Games

1997 Scotty Bowman becomes first coach in NHL history to win 1,000 games

  • 1998 Daniel Baldwin hospitalized in NYC for cocaine overdose
  • 1998 Philippine DC-9 crashes apparently killing all 104 on board

"Plutonian Ode"

2002 Philip Glass' Symphony No. 6 (Plutonian Ode), for soprano and orchestra, based on the poem by Allen Ginsberg, premieres with the American Composers Orchestra conducted by Dennis Russell Davies, at Carnegie Hall, NYC

"All I Have"

2003 Jennifer Lopez starts a three week run at #1 on the US singles chart with "All I Have"

  • 2003 Russian pop girl duo Tatu start a four-week run at #1 on the UK singles chart with "All The Things She Said"

RuPaul's Drag Race" Premieres

2009 "RuPaul's Drag Race" hosted by RuPaul premieres on Logo TV

  • 2012 Cold snap across Europe kills more than 100 people (over 400 people by 08-02)
  • 2012 MV Rabaul Queen sinks off the coast of Papua New Guinea with 246 people saved and 126 missing (100 of these estimated to be trapped inside)
  • 2012 NHL player Sam Gagner becomes the first player to scores eight points in one game for the Edmonton Oilers against the Chicago Blackhawks since 1989
  • 2013 18 people are killed and 34 are injured after a bus catches fire after falling down a ravine in Gansu province, China
  • 2013 23 people are killed and 8 are injured after militants attacked an army base in the Lakki Marwat District, Pakistan

Senkaku Islands Promise

2013 Shinzō Abe, Japan’s Prime Minister vows to defend the Senkaku Islands "at all costs"

  • 2014 Protests in Ukraine turn violent after parliament passes legislation that outlaws protest

Super Bowl XLVIII

2014 Super Bowl XLVIII, MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ: Seattle Seahawks beat Denver Broncos, 42-8; MVP: Malcolm Smith, Seattle, LB

  • 2016 First case of Zika contracted on US mainland (Texas) and second known sexually transmitted case confirmed in Texas
  • 2018 All 955 miners rescued from the Beatrix gold mine in Welkom town, South Africa, after 2 days underground

R. Kelly Arrested

2019 American singer R. Kelly arrested after turning himself in on ten counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse, including with three minors

  • 2019 More than 40 mummies from 323-30 BC found at a burial site at Tuna el-Gebel archaeological site south of Cairo, Egypt
  • 2019 Virginia Governor Ralph Northam admits to wearing blackface in 1984 but says he's not in a photo of men wearing blackface and a Ku Klux Klan robe on a yearbook page
  • 2020 Palindrome Day: the date 02022020 reads the same forward and backward including in the US and China (last one like this 11 November 1111)

Super Bowl LIV

2020 Super Bowl LIV, Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, FL: Kansas City Chiefs beat San Francisco 49ers, 31-20; MVP: Patrick Mahomes, KC Chiefs, QB; Chiefs' 1st victory in 50 years

  • 2021 Alejandro Mayorkas is the first Latino and immigrant to be confirmed as head of the US Department of Homeland Security

Bezos Steps Down

2021 Jeff Bezos announces he is stepping down as CEO of Amazon after 30 years, becoming executive chairman

  • 2021 Pete Buttigieg is the first openly gay person to be confirmed to a US cabinet post as transportation secretary
  • 2021 Russia's Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine deemed 91.6% effective according to analysis published in "The Lancet" [1]